


Finding You

by cactuslesbian



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Dreamscapes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Sasha James Lives, its the orpheus and euridice of it all, michael's weird murder door, the stranger does stranger things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23981065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactuslesbian/pseuds/cactuslesbian
Summary: “Do I know you?” Tim slides into the booth across from her. The seat only looks padded, it’s hard and rigid, hurts his back when he’s sitting in it.The girl looks sad, frowns deeply and has a tiredness about her that physically looms. Like she’s been here for much, much too long. Tim desperately wants to understand; for some reason she feels familiar and important, he can’t shake that feeling. He also can’t shake the feeling that he hates seeing her upset. He’s always hated seeing her upset.“You used to,” She says.-or, in which sasha is trapped in the stranger's realm and tim has some weird dreams.
Relationships: Sasha James & Michael, Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 109





	Finding You

**Author's Note:**

> once again got lost in the discord sauce. ben wyatt vc: it's about the orpheus and euridice imagery.

Tim Stoker wakes up in a cold sweat, the heart monitor beeping just a little bit faster. He can’t remember his dreams the past two nights. He’s aware he’s dreaming; wakes up with the vaguest sensation that there’s something he’s forgotten to remember, but beyond that, there’s a frustrating blankness that’s prodding at the back of his mind. It’s not even as solid as the sensation of worms. He can still feel them like a ghost limb even though he’s been checked and checked carefully for them.

His nurse, a cheerful older woman named Delia, had told him that he should be able to go home tomorrow. She’d smiled at him as she’d adjusted his IV, “anyone waiting at home for you, love?”

Tim’s mind briefly wanders to Danny, the time he’d slept on his couch for a week during Uni, tried to make dinner once and nearly burned the flat to the ground. They’d laughed for ages over takeaway, all the windows open to air out the smoke.

Then his thoughts drift to Sasha. The time she’d stayed the night, the two of them tangled in his sheets in the gold of morning, the back of his knuckles idly brushing her cheekbone as she slept. She looked so much more at ease when she was asleep, he remembers noting, the usual crease between her eyebrows gone, her face relaxed.

Sasha hasn’t stayed over in months now.

“No,” Tim says after a moment. The smile he wears looks easy and bright as he leans in and asks in a mock-conspiratorial tone, “Unless of course, you’re free after this?”

Delia laughs a little bit, gives one of his bandaged cheeks a gentle pat, and then walks out, leaving Tim alone with the vaguest sense of unease.

( When Sasha comes to visit it’s only for a handful of minutes. She leaves him with a teddy bear and clipped words about being thankful that he and Jon are going to be alright, but something isn’t right. Maybe she’s still shaken up from Prentiss, lord knows he is, but the visit leaves a bad taste in his mouth. )

-

Only months later does he start to remember his dreams.

There’s a woman sitting alone in a parody of the park he sometimes walks through after work, or she stares at him with sad eyes from within a crowd of faceless people, she idly walks through something that could be his apartment; if his apartment had different wallpaper, pointier looking chairs, a tv that only ever plays static.

Tonight he finds her at what might be his favorite coffee shop. The chairs curve inward slightly, the light fixtures glow with a stark blue instead of warm yellow light. The woman sits at a back booth with her hands wrapped around a chipped mug. When Tim gets closer he can see the mug is filled with stuffing, as though someone has torn a teddy bear open in lieu of a drink.

For a moment Tim thinks of an earl gray tea latte with almond milk and extra sugar. The woman looks up at him, away from her undrinkable cup, “Oh,” her voice, there’s something about it, the way there’s something about the curve of her mouth and the way her hair falls, “It’s you.”

“Do I know you?” Tim slides into the booth across from her. The seat only looks padded, it’s hard and rigid, hurts his back when he’s sitting in it. 

The girl looks sad, frowns deeply, and has a tiredness about her that physically looms. Like she’s been here for much, much too long. Tim desperately wants to understand; for some reason, she feels familiar and important, he can’t shake that feeling. He also can’t shake the feeling that he hates seeing her upset. He’s always hated seeing her upset.

“You used to,” She says.

( Tim wakes up in a cold sweat, breathless. His throat feels tight, his eyes sting. He wants to cry, but simply can't figure out for the life of him why. His back hurts, though. )

-

He doesn’t tell anyone of the dreams, though he thinks of telling Sasha and quickly dismisses that thought. She’s been distant ever since Prentiss, weird in a way that makes Tim worry. He’d ask her about therapy, but he knows that’d just be a case of pot and kettle. He hasn’t talked to anyone in a therapeutic capacity in years. Before Danny, even.

Trauma changes you, right? 

-

  
The woman appears in his apartment this time. She sits on his old sofa, or what should be his old sofa, and looks at the TV as it plays it’s static. Tim settles on the couch just beside her in silence. 

“Are you alright?” it’s a stupid thing to ask, it really is. But he can’t help himself.

“No,” she answers simply.

“Who are you?” 

She simply shrugs. 

Finally, Tim has to ask, “Do you dream about me too?”

She looks at him with big brown eyes that lack a spark he knows should be there. The woman reaches a hand out and settles it on his cheek. Even in the dream, tim can feel the coldness of it, like touching metal. 

“You don’t dream here, Tim.”

( When he wakes up to the alarm on his phone blaring, he can’t breathe. He can still feel the cool of her hand resting against the side of his face, the thumb brushing against his cheek. He dry heaves into the kitchen trash as he tries to prepare a coffee for himself, and calls into work. )

-

He can’t properly document how often he actually sees her. Sometimes it feels as though they’re together every night sometimes he sees her only once in a two week period. They spend the time walking through a haphazard mockery of his life, hand in frigid hand. 

( She says she likes holding onto him. It makes her feel real, alive. Even if only for a little while. ) 

He still doesn’t know who she is. She’s tried to tell him her name once or twice, but the only sound that seemed to come from her mouth was the same static that plays on the TV in his apartment.

“What about Alex?” the woman offers. 

He smiles a little despite himself, “Why Alex?” 

She shrugs. “Sometimes, ▉▉▉▉▉ is a nickname for Alexandra. When I was around fourteen I made everyone call me that for about a year after I decided I hated my name. Kid stuff. Maybe you could call me that.”

“Alright. Alex is.” He bumps into her shoulders lightly with his own. The story feels oddly familiar like he’s heard it before in a dream about a dream. 

“You’re going to wake up now,” She informs. Her tone is nearly sad, and her smile doesn't reach her eyes. “Visit again soon, alright?”

-

Michael sneaks up on them in the tunnels, but that’s too much of a simplification, he manifests behind them while Martin and Tim are arguing and the thing that isn’t Sasha is lurking in the shadows. 

“I think I might kill you,” It informs almost cheerfully. “But first, there’s something I’d like you to help me with. Everyone would win, but more importantly, the Stranger would lose something.”

“What do you want?” Tim grinds out through gritted teeth. 

A long and sharp finger taps against Michael’s chin as he pretends to contemplate, “I simply would like your help collecting something the stranger stole. Or, Someone. She’s quite frightened you know.”

“Who is?” Martin demands, he looks to Tim, “Do you think...?”

“Maybe.” He knows Martin is referring to Helen Richardson, missing and alone in whatever lies beyond the door. Or maybe somewhere else entirely. “How do you’re telling the truth?”

Michael’s smile is too wide, too sharp, “You _don’t_ ,” 

-

Tim is still unsure of this idea. He can tell that Martin is also bristling with trepidation beside him as they wander through the long winding corridors. In the hallway, the thing that calls itself Michael drops the pretense of looking human. He’s hard to look at, he induces headaches and nausea, but neither of them plan on getting lost. Not here.

“This is your stop.” Michael informs delightedly. “I do suggest only one of you go at a time, it’s going to be so bothersome if you both are lost to this place.”

Tim doesn’t wait for permission, and he doesn’t ask. He pulls the metal torch they’d been using as a pseudo weapon out of Martin’s hands and he walks forward.

-

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it isn’t the world he slips into as he dreams. For a long and terrible moment, he’s unsure if this is real or not, if he’s fallen asleep at his desk and everything from Jon’s cryptic last words, to the tunnels, have simply been another dream. 

Tim pulls his pocket knife from his pocket and flips out the blade. He draws it across his finger and blood begins to bead around the wound, the pain is sharp and distinct and immediate. That's never happened before when he’d dreamed of this place.

He walks forward.

He still remembers Helen, her tired eyes, her hair in a low ponytail with strands falling out. Tim distinctly remembers how she’d looked like she hadn’t slept in a few days, had a near frantic look to her.

He doesn’t find Helen.

Alex, or at least the woman who’s asked him to call her Alex, sits on a swing set and stares at what Tim thinks are meant to be wood chips. But woodchips don’t wiggle and writhe.

“You’re here.” she says in a breath and pats the swing next to her, holds out her hand, “Join me.”

Tim walks forward and wraps his hand around her’s. It’s still cold, but it’s more solid somehow. There’s weight to it, he can feel a callus along her index finger, the dryness of her palm.

“You... You’re here.” She says, frowning at his hand. “You’re properly here.” she meets his eyes, brows furrowing in a way that's as frustratingly familiar as everything else here. “how are you here?”

“The door,” Is all Tim can say. He turns and points at the door, standing upright and slightly ajar, it’s yellow a stark contrast to the green-gray leaves and grass of the park. “Michael sent me. Martin too.” 

“Martin’s here?” Alex sounds like she might cry. “How is he?”

“A little scared, a little shaken up, we’re worried about Jon-” Tim can’t help but resent how the ‘we’ just slips out, but Alex really does begin to cry. 

“You all made it.” she whispers, “oh god, you all made it. I was so scared... I can’t... I can’t see Jon and Martin, not like how I see you. I was so scared that the CO² hadn't started in time, that the worms-” she shakes her head.

Then, she offers him a thin strip of paper. It’s a line of photographs like one would get at a carnival or a mall in a photo booth. He’s in every little picture, grinning, but more strikingly, so is the woman he knows only as Alex. There’s only one picture where they’re not making faces or smiling directly at the camera; he’s leaned in to kiss her cheek and she’s closed her eyes in a laugh just as the picture had taken. In neat looping cursive, he sees the words “Tim & Sasha, 2016” 

Suddenly he feels as though the wind has been knocked out of him.

“Remember that old photo booth near the river? We stopped after dinner, our first proper date. You let me keep the pictures. I think they’re all that’s kept me anchored while I’m here. They let me reach out to you, somehow.”

“You’re... You’re really her?” Tim feels faint. “I’ve been. I’ve been working with someone, someone who said she was you, but, but she- oh god.” Tim feels the grass crunch under his weight as his knees hit the ground. Suddenly everything makes just a little more sense, but what dots he’s able to connect aren’t the least bit comforting.

Something stole Sasha’s life. Something he’d chatted with and smiled at, and went to the canteen with. And the real Sasha, the one who’d run her fingers through his hair when he lay with his head on her lap, the one who fit so securely into his hugs, who he laid in the dark with and told the truth about Danny for the first time, she’d been trapped here.

His arms wrap around her legs as the sobs start, “I’m so sorry, Sasha. I’m so sorry.” 

And she runs her fingers through his hair.

( he takes a few minutes to properly compose himself. Breathe. Rise to his feet and tell her that they’re getting out of here. 

Sasha holds tight to his hand but Tim doesn’t dare look back at her. Not until they’re in the corridors and the door has shut behind them. No, he knows how that story ends, and it won’t be theirs. )

-

The distortion is a mercurial sort of thing. It had talked so casually about killing him and Martin, but as Sasha enters the door and collapses, it’s head tilts, “Poor thing,”

Tim lifts her into his arms and holds her close. She’s lighter than he remembers of the times he’d lifted her up in a spinning hug; he can feel the bumps of her spine jutting through her shirt.

“She’s free from the stranger’s realm, and that has consequences,” Michael informs in his awful lilting voice. “She should recuperate, though who can say how that will look.” 

“Tim, who is-” 

“Sasha. The real Sasha.” Tim says cutting him off. He only sets her down for a moment so he can peel his jacket off and drape it over her like a blanket. She’s still so cold he can feel it through her clothes. He lifts her up again and looks intently at Michael. “What’s your game?”

Michael shrugs, the hallways move and twist and distort around them and Tim holds onto Sasha that much tighter, as though she’ll vanish if he dares let go. When the ground under their feet finally stops twisting and contorting, Michael ushers them out and into the Archives.

“Sasha James was in a place to be helped, and so I helped.” It says by way of answer. “I did tell her I wished to be friends.”

“But why? Why help?” Martin asks. “It’s not that we’re ungrateful, but-”

The Distortion’s head tilts, long yellow curves falling down it’s shoulders. It’s face is still unreadable as he says, “No one ever helped Michael.”

And before they can even begin to ask what that means, the thing has taken one long step backwards into the corridor, shut the door, and vanished.

“Call 999,” Tim demands. And Martin does. He can explain later, Sasha cannot wait.

-

Sasha sleeps. She sleeps and sleeps and Tim keeps vigil by her bedside. He only ever leaves to get another terrible instant coffee or bag of crisps from the machine or use the bathroom. He can’t remember what story Martin had told the EMT’s when they’d asked about the state of her, but even if they didn’t believe him, Sasha’s alive. She’s severely malnourished and dehydrated, but she’s alive.

It's more than he'd had a right to hope for.

-

When Sasha eventually wakes up, it’s when he’s gone to get a coffee. He comes back to see her eyes open and staring, and he drops the cup and sprints to her side.

“Oh thank god,” He whispers, “Thank god.” 

Her hand squeezes his, warm and soft with that same little callus, he brings her hand to his mouth and presses a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

Her smile is soft and easy. God, he's missed that smile. 

He's missed _her_.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is a reference to the kesha song of the same name and it makes me soft
> 
> anyway, thank u so much for reading! 
> 
> catch me on @smallandknowingdyke on tumblr or dorkbending on twitter :D


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